Assistant Design Manager

Arcadis; Bristol; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

Arcadis seeks an Assistant Design Manager in Bristol to support the development of sustainable rail infrastructure design. This role includes coordinating design inputs, collaborating with diverse teams, and ensuring compliance with industry standards.

The ideal candidate should have a relevant engineering degree and experience in design or construction, particularly within rail projects. Strong communication and problem-solving skills are essential. A commitment to diversity and inclusion is part of Arcadis’s ethos.

Qualifications

• Experience in design or engineering environments, preferably in rail or transport.
• Awareness of design management, technical assurance, and project delivery processes.
• Familiarity with design software and digital delivery environments.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate multidisciplinary design inputs and deliverables for rail projects.
• Assist in the management of drawings, models, and technical reports.
• Collaborate with diverse project teams to ensure integrated design solutions.

Skills

Communication skills

Organisational skills

Problem-solving skills

Education

Degree, HNC/HND in engineering, construction, architecture, or related discipline

Tools

AutoCAD

Revit

BIM

Job description

Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. We are more than 34,000 people, in over 30 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life. Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role Description

As an Assistant Design Manager within our Rail South, West & Wales business, this role will support the coordination, development and delivery of multidisciplinary rail infrastructure design. The role will focus on passenger environments, stations, depots and associated rail assets, helping to ensure that design solutions are inclusive, sustainable, safe, technically robust and aligned with client requirements. Working closely with Design Managers, Engineering Managers and discipline leads, the role will support design integration across project stages from early concept and feasibility through to detailed design and delivery.

Role Accountabilities

• Support the coordination of multidisciplinary design inputs, interfaces and deliverables for rail stations, depots and associated infrastructure
• Assist in the preparation and management of drawings, models, schedules, technical reports and design documentation using relevant tools, standards and project procedures
• Work collaboratively with engineers, architects, planners, environmental specialists, contractors and wider project teams to support coordinated and integrated design solutions
• Support design reviews, interdisciplinary checks and technical assurance activities, helping to ensure accessibility, safety, sustainability and buildability principles are embedded in the design
• Assist in tracking design actions, risks, assumptions, decisions, changes and opportunities, escalating issues where appropriate to the Design Manager or Engineering Manager
• Support engagement with clients, operators, stakeholders and discipline leads to capture requirements, communicate design intent and contribute to clear project outcomes
• Assist in ensuring compliance with relevant regulatory, planning, industry and client standards, including awareness of CDM designer responsibilities and safety‑in‑design requirements

Qualifications & Experience

• Degree, HNC/HND or equivalent qualification in engineering, construction, architecture, project management or a related discipline; working towards professional registration is beneficial
• Experience in a design, engineering, construction, manufacturing or infrastructure environment, ideally with exposure to rail, transport or multidisciplinary project delivery
• Awareness of design management, design coordination, technical assurance, interface management or project delivery processes
• Familiarity with design software and digital delivery environments, such as Bentley, Revit, AutoCAD, ProjectWise, BIM or other common data environments
• Understanding of inclusive design, sustainability, user‑focused environments, design risk management and safe delivery principles
• Strong communication, organisational and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to work collaboratively across diverse multidisciplinary teams and maintain attention to detail in written and verbal communication.

Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day which is why we take equality and inclusion seriously and hold ourselves to account for our actions. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. We believe that by working together diverse people with different experiences develop the most innovative ideas. Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of how we improve quality of life and we work closely with our people across six ED&I Workstreams: Age, Disability, Faith, Gender, LGBT+ and Race. A diverse and skilled workforce is essential to our success.